A Broken Stem
by hickorydaisy
Summary: Rose Potter was proclaimed the Girl-Who-Lived, but her brother Harry is the real Boy-Who-Lived. Rose grew up with the Dursleys, but Harry grew up in the foster system. Neither one knew of magic, or really of each-other, but they are more than happy to find out.
1. Chapter 1

It is said that on that night of Halloween, Sirius Black betrayed the location of the Potter home. It is said that on that night of Halloween, Voldemort came to Godric's Hollow. It is said on that night of Halloween, Voldemort killed James and Lily Potter. It is said that on that night of Halloween, Voldemort turned his wand on little Rose Potter and shot the Killing Curse. It is said that on that night of Halloween, little Rose Potter survived this curse. It is said that on that night of Halloween, Voldemort somehow perished at Rose Potter's chubby baby hands. It is said that on that night of Halloween, Peter Pettigrew and a dozen muggles were killed by Sirius Black.

And yet, only two of those said things are true.

Sirius Black didn't betray the Potters on that night of Halloween. But then, Voldemort came to Godric's Hollow. James and Lily Potter died by Voldemort's wand. But when Voldemort reached the nursery, there were two children inside. Twins, Harry and Rose, and Voldemort did not turn his wand on Rose. Peter Pettigrew killed many muggles and faked his death, leaving Sirius Black to take the blame, on that night on Halloween.

Everyone thinks they know the story, but no-one really does. The curse rebounded off Harry Potter and caused an explosion. Harry Potter was left with a cursed scar, but Rose was hit in the face by some broken pieces of her crib, in such a way that it looked like one long and nasty gash down her face.

When Dumbledore came along, he proclaimed Rose the survivor for her much fancier scar, and had her spirited away to her muggle relatives for protection.

Harry was considered not as important, and so Dumbledore had him placed in Muggle Foster Care, before simply leaving the both of them to their respective fates.

Years passed, both of them unknowing that they had a sibling, but aside the Dursley's generally horrid treatment of Rose, nothing of great importance happened until they were eight.

When Harry was eight years old, he was moved to a new foster house. This, in and of itself, was nothing new, it had happened twice before, both times because strange things kept happening around him that he couldn't explain. However, what was important, was the family across the street.

Across the street from the foster home, you see, there lived a family of two dentists and their only daughter. The other foster kids often picked on the girl because she spent so much time reading. Harry thought that the girl didn't deserve to be picked on.

It was less than a week since Harry's arrival the first time he stood up for the dark-skinned girl across the street. Everyone had been shocked that there was anyone standing up for her, regardless of who it was. When the other children, some of them other foster kids, some just from around the neighborhood, left, the young girl asked Harry why he had stood up for her.

"Why wouldn't I?" was Harry's only answer.

Harry soon learned that the girl he had stood up for was named Hermione Granger, and from that point on, they did just about everything together. They had a lot of fun, and loved getting back at the bullies.

However, it wasn't meant to last, as Harry was shunted off to yet another new foster home on his tenth birthday, and Hermione was left behind. While they sent each-other letters, it wasn't really the same.

Nothing happened, not really, when the twins were ten, at least not until the summer. Rose was quite shocked when she got a letter in the mail addressed to her.

"What is this?" she murmured to herself as she walked back towards the dining room where they Dursleys were sitting, waiting on their mail.

Apparently, she was a bit too loud, as Uncle Vernon overheard her and ripped the letter away from her before yelling at her nonsensically about freaks. Rose fled and hid in her cupboard, because the Dursleys were too big to fit in there. As a matter of fact, she hid under the raggedy old sleeping bag the Dursleys had given her because even a cot was 'too good' for a freak like her. She even scooted as far away from the door as she could in a room this small.

A lock of her bright red hair fell into her eyes. She didn't dare move to fix it. Uncle Vernon scared her when he was in this mood. He was in this mood a lot.

It didn't help that she got another letter the next day.

And the day after that.

Not to mention, the day after that as well.

Needless to say, she never got to actually read any of those letters, but she thought it very amusing that they just kept coming.

She wondered, idly one morning as she hid in her cupboard, which the Dursleys had i _technically_ /i moved her out of, but it was where she felt safest, so she kept staying there anyway, if it was one of the strange people on the street.

They were very strange people, these people on the street. Dressed in clothes so old fashioned they looked like they were on their way to a costume party, and using words that made no sense, like "Quidditch" and "Muggle", these people would come up to her and know her name for no apparent reason, and mangle very common words in very strange ways, like "Electricity" becoming "Elckticery". That wasn't even some other word, at least not in English!

None of it made any sense to Rose, so she sat in her cupboard and played pretend with sticks and rocks from the garden outside.

The only explanation that Rose really wanted was probably the most unlikely. Once, when Aunt Petunia was yelling, she had said, "At least we didn't get saddled with your brother, too!" Rose wanted very much to meet her mysterious brother, and hoped against hope that the letters were from him, but she very much doubted that he knew she existed. After all, he didn't have a horrid Aunt to yell at him, did he?

Uncle Vernon was yelling again. Rose couldn't make out what he was saying, but he was awfully mad, so Rose swept her rocks and sticks to the side just as the cupboard door flew open.

"Get out here, brat," Uncle Vernon snarled, "We're leaving to get away from those letters. Don't bother packing anything, you haven't got anything worth keeping!" he laughed as he stalked off, but Rose still had to pack clothes, so she hurried to do that.

By 'clothes' Rose packed a few of Dudley's hand-me-down shirts as dresses, and threw in an extra ribbon - her birthday present from when she turned eight - in as a sash, and tied the pillowcase she was using as a bag shut. It wouldn't do to make them wait, and she would probably be slapped.

She hated being slapped.

She also hated being in the car with the Dursleys.

Dudley took up most of the back seat with his bulk, and what wasn't taken up by his bulk was taken up by his whining. He seemed physically incapable of shutting his mouth as he complained about everything from Rose to the lack of a television to Rose to not being able to play computer games to Rose again.

Vernon appeared to have composed a new song consisting of the lyrics, 'dirty freaks,' 'don't come any closer,' and 'shake them off.' Rose didn't think it would sell very well.

Petunia didn't seem to like Uncle Vernon's new song either, if her continued muttering and worried glances in between her nervous chatter about everything from week-old gossip and rumors to whatever billboard had just been passed.

Rose couldn't wait for them to stop somewhere because she could finally stop listening to this strange chorus of voices. She wished she could get away from them forever. She wished the letter sender would come find her, whoever they were.

They couldn't possibly be worse than the Dursleys.

No-one was worse than the Dursleys.

They didn't come that night, or the next morning, leaving Rose very disappointed. Not in the letter sender for not coming, but in herself for getting her hopes up. If anyone was going to take her from the Dursleys, they would have done it by now. She knew that. Why had she let herself think any differently last night?

There were an awful lot of letters at the hotel that morning for Rose, but even that couldn't raise her spirits. As she twirled a strand of her dark red hair between her fingers, she sighed and propped herself on the table with one elbow until Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon said it was time to go.

They were back in the car again. The whining, singing, and gossip from yesterday had started up again, but now it was louder. Rose wondered if she could run away on the next toilet break but decided against it due to the fact she didn't have any food to take with her. The noise was driving her crazy.

They only stopped three times that day. The first time Uncle Vernon bought a long thin thing in a box that Rose did not like and decided to stay away from. The second time was a late lunch, where Rose was allowed to eat Dudley's side-salad. It wasn't a bad salad, but Rose was still hungry. The third time was a toilet break, which was boring, because Rose had no food and therefore could not run away.

Then they got to their 'destination'.

It was a run down shack on a rock a little ways out at sea.

Rose hated it on sight.

Rose had to row the little boat out to sea for the Dursleys, and then haul their things up the rock into the shack. Both parts of that assignment were very heavy.

Rose didn't know if it was lucky or sad that she was already very strong from doing practically all the Dursleys chores for as long as she could remember. Eventually she decided it was probably sad.

It was that sadness of a hurt both long gone and brand new that kept her company under the ratty old blanket the Dursleys had given her 'out of the kindness of their hearts.' Rose wasn't sure they had hearts.

She looked a Dudley's watch and counted down the minutes until she was eleven. She knew her birthday wouldn't be anything special, but she wanted to do something, even if it was herself.

Forget minutes, now there were only sixty seconds until she was eleven. She began humming the birthday tune the children at school always sang. She was going to sing it to herself the moment the new day began.

Ten seconds…

Nine…

Eight…

Sev- what was that noise?

Six…

Five…

Fou- was the rock dissolving?

Three…

Two…

One!

BOOM!

There was someone at the door. There was someone at the door at midnight. There was someone at the door at midnight on Rose's birthday.

Hope welled up in Rose's heart that they might be there for her before she could squash it down. Dudley bolted upright, asking where the cannon was. Uncle Vernon crashed through the door to the other room with a rifle in his hands.

Rose squeaked and shuffled away from her Uncle and his gun.

BOOM!

Whoever was at the door knocked again. Rose would have gone to answer it, but she was scared of her Uncle's gun.


	2. Chapter 2

There was a final loud CRASH as the door broke down to reveal a very large man with a huge, bushy beard, beetle-black eyes, hair that matched his beard, and wearing large and shabby looking - were those robes? Yes, they were robes! Rose had never seen someone wear robes outside of movies or halloween, so this struck her as quite odd.

The large man was quiet, turning around and placing the door back into the frame with his hands, completely ignoring the fact that there were no longer any hinges. It was probably best to be careful when leaving, Rose noted.

When this ginormous man turned around, he asked, "Now, where's Rosie?"

Rose blinked. No-one ever called her Rosie. At school, they all called her Potter, except for Mrs. Bray, her teacher, who called her Rose. The Dursleys only ever called her 'girl' and 'freak'. Yet this man… called her Rosie. She liked him already.

"You'll not be here, you freak!" Uncle Vernon spat, reminding Rose that he was there. He leveled the gun at the giant man, and Rose was terrified that the first sign of her possible salvation might be destroyed.

"Mister, watch out!" she yelled, before she could stop to think about why that was a terrible idea.

She had done so before, jumping in without thinking. Once Dudley had been picking on some other kid at school, she thought her name had been Lilana, and had rushed to save her. The only thing that got her was beat up by Dudley, and Lilana was pulled out of school less than a month later because there had been an accident that left her blind.

Another time, while running away from Dudley, she had run all the way to the neighborhood pool, and lept into it to avoid Dudley, forgetting that she couldn't swim. The lifeguard saved her, but she had been punished severely by the Dursleys for "calling attention to herself." They did not give her swimming lessons.

But the man laughed, a great, big, booming laugh, and grabbed the gun out of Uncle Vernon's hands and twisted it up into the shape of one of those nasty stale pretzels that Rose was sometimes given when the Dursleys were feeling 'nice'. Then he threw it to the side and turned to her, a great big smile on his face that made Rose herself want to smile,

"There ya are, Rosie! Was worried about ya. Weren't gettin' yer letters an' all. Dumbledore sent meh with yer letter tah deliver tah ya in person. Here ya go," he smiled as he handed her a letter, exactly like the others she had never gotten to open.

She opened the letter and looked at it. Her eyes narrowed. "Who are you? Is this some kind of joke? It's not very funny. I stopped believing in magic when I was eight. And here I thought you might be trying to get me out of this dump, but really, you're working for them, aren't you? Damnit. I actually had hope this time that I would get out of here!"

The man looked at her and his jaw dropped open. "Wha-? Yeh… Yeh don't know… Yeh don't believe…"

Rose looked at his face and then turned to the Dursleys. "Nice try, Uncle Vernon. You almost had me this time. Where'd you get this one anyway?"

Uncle Vernon gave her this look of utter disbelief. "He's not one of mine! I would never associate with a freak like that!"

"Wait… What? It's… not a joke?" Rose turned back to the man and gasped out, "Please… tell me everything… Does this have anything to do with… with my brother?"

The man soon introduced himself as Hagrid, and said he was the groundskeeper at Hogwarts, the biggest magic school nearby. He got incredibly angry at the Dursleys for keeping her in the dark, and gave Dudley a pig's tail, curly and pink, which made Rose giggle, mostly because Dudley hated pink. He gave her a birthday cake and told her the real story of how her parents died. But most importantly, he told her that her brother's name was Harry, and he was her twin. Then, after he had explained magic and everything else she had wanted to know, he handed her his coat and told her to get some rest, they were going to buy her school supplies tomorrow.

"Can I meet my brother tomorrow?" Rose asked Hagrid, just before she went to bed.

"It's very likely, Rosie," Hagrid grumbled sleepily before rolling over and falling asleep.

When Rose woke up, there was an owl tapping at the window. Why, she had no idea, but it was carrying something, not to mention extremely annoying, so she got up to let it in.

The bird, of course, was ungrateful and dropped whatever it had been carrying on her head before beginning to attack Hagrid. Rose was not the biggest fan of birds in general.

"You bloody bird, what was that for? I hate birds!" she cursed as she pulled the whatever it was off her head. "The Daily Prophet? A… Newspaper? Magic Newspaper?" Rose giggled. "Hagrid! An owl flew through the window and dropped a magic newspaper on my head!"

Hagrid grunted, "Pay 'im," while still half asleep, somehow, despite being attacking by, in Rose's opinion, the most annoying bird in existence.

"What?" Rose asked. "What with? And isn't this your paper? You pay the owl!" She stomped her foot angrily.

"Al'ight, Al'ight," Hagrid grunted as he sat up. "True, 's my paper." He pulled a bag of strange looking coins out of one of the many pockets in his coat and counted out five of the smaller ones and placed them in a pouch on the owl's leg. The owl flew away the moment it had it's money.

Hagrid then turned to Rose. "Now, we ought ter eat sommat. Cake?" He handed her the box which held the remainder of her birthday cake, which the two of them soon finished off.

Hagrid then said it was time to go shopping for school supplies, so Rose asked him again, "With what?"

"Well, yer parents didn' leave yeh broke, now, Rosie!" Hagrid chuckled, "We're off ter Gringotts, the Wizard bank!"

"Wizards and Witches only have one bank?" Rosie asked Hagrid as they stole the boat that she and the Dursleys had gone to the island in. "That seems like rather poor planning."

Hagrid gave her a funny look, so she decided to shut up now. Hagrid appeared to be reading the newspaper anyway.

Across the small stretch of water and a bit of land, right on the outskirts of London, was the foster home of one Harry Potter. Well, and Jonny Lane and Louis Davis too, but they hold no importance.

Now, on this day of the thirty-first of July, a stern looking woman rapped at the door early in the morning, looking for Harry Potter.

The door was opened by the resident foster-parent, William Russ. He seemed very confused as to why there was a stern old woman on his doorstep at seven in the morning.

"Who are you?" he asked her, frowning.

"My name is Professor Minerva McGonagall, and I would like to see a boy in your care by the name of Harry Potter. He has been accepted into my school," she replied evenly.

"Harry, huh?" William looked at her. "Yeah, I can see that. Harry might be a bit nosey, but he's a good kid, and smart as a whip. I have no doubt he got into some fancy private school." William turned around and yelled into the house, "Harry! Someone here to see you about some fancy private school!" and then simply walked off into the house, leaving Minerva on the doorstep.

Harry quickly came running, and soon he was the one in the doorway, scowling at Minerva. "Who are you?"

Minerva sighed, "I am Professor Minerva McGonagall, Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and I am here to give you your acceptance letter." She then -gasp- handed him his acceptance letter. It was anticlimactic.

Harry opened the letter, read it, and then glanced up at Minerva. "Magic, huh? That's what I can do?"

Minerva looked down at the rather small eleven year old and replied, "Of course. I am also here to escort you shopping for your school supplies."

"Are you paying for them?"

"No. We will be getting money from you and your sister's trust vault at Gringotts"

Harry's face shifted instantly into one of shock. "Sister?"

Minerva, confused, tilted her head and asked, "Yes, your twin sister, Rose. Didn't you know about her?"

"No… I would like to meet her, though," Harry told Minerva, giving her a shy smile.

Minerva nodded and said, "If that is what you wish, we must get going, or there will be no time for a family reunion."

Harry nodded, grabbed his shoes, and then followed Minerva out the door.

The Leaky Cauldron looked rather shabby for a famous establishment, Rose thought. The place looked unclean, not in a way that made the place repulsive, but in a way that made them seem understaffed. The furniture was old, like there was either not enough money or enough time to buy new tables and chairs. However, it had this warm, sort of bright and pleasant feeling to it.

She quite liked it. Until Hagrid clapped her on the shoulder and told everyone who she was.

There were so many people, coming at her all at once, all wanting to shake her hand like she was the heroine in some children's story. (Which I suppose you could say is true.) She didn't want to shake any hands, but some people were grabbing hers and shaking it against her will.

Then something incredible happened.

Across the pub, the door opened, admitting a Professor and her young charge, a boy you might recognize with black hair darker than the shiny plastic sides of a magic eight ball and bright green eyes the color of the curse which slew hundreds of people including his own parents.

Yes, yes, you all know it's Professor Minerva McGonagall and young Harry Potter, but let me have my fun, would you?

Now, this Harry Potter, unlike the great majority of Harry Potters you will ever meet, did not get beaten for noticing things and doing well in school. In fact, he had been top of his class most of the time. He noticed lots of things around him and was not, as many a Harry Potter is, thick as a brick wall. So he noticed the cluster of people around something or someone next to the very tall man at the back of the place within seconds.

"Professor," he asked sweetly, "Why is there a clusterf- a large cluster of people back there?" Harry mentally cursed himself. He didn't know how this Professor felt about swearing, and if he said the wrong thing, she could make his life very hard.

McGonagall merely sighed. "I do believe I found your sister," she told him before beginning to march over there purposefully. "Clear out, everyone! She's eleven, leave her be!"

Harry followed the Professor as fast as he could without running. A sister… this was something he had never dreamed of, but was really just perfect. He had family after all, a twin sister. If all went well today, they could become close and look out for each other…

Rose looked up at the stern woman who had shooed away the ridiculously large hoard of people who had gathered around her like zombies around a living human without a weapon with a extremely grateful look on her face. Then she saw the boy behind the woman.

She didn't need an introduction, the moment she saw the way he looked at her, knowing and hopeful, she knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this boy was her twin brother.


End file.
